Sixty Years of Priestly Apostasy

by Thomas A. Droleskey

To even consider writing an article such as this one is exhausting beyond all telling. Yes, the subject of the currently governing false "pontiff," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is quite wearying as this Modernist's apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges have been chronicled on this site hundreds upon hundreds of times in the past six years since his election as the fifth consecutive figure of Antichrist to lay claim, albeit falsely, to the Throne of Saint Peter. A few remarks are in order, however, given the fact that Wednesday, June 29, 2011, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, was the sixtieth anniversary of Ratzinger/Benedict's ordination to the holy priesthood.

Perhaps this article can be summarized as follows: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's entire priesthood can be summarized in one simple word: Apostasy.

Joseph Ratzinger's convoluted mind of contradiction and paradox was shaped, if you can call it that, during his years in seminary by professors who served as propagandists for the "new theology" that would be condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis on August 12, 1950. George Weigel, the hagiographer of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II (Enjoy the Party, George, Enjoy the Party) and a propagandist in behalf of all things conciliar, noted with approval that Ratzinger/Benedict has been the first "non-Thomist" to serve as the head of what he thinks is the Catholic Church's doctrinal office in centuries, citing Ratzinger's seminary training as being responsible for this sign of "progress" that is actually, of course, a sign of apostasy:

 

In November 1945, Joseph Ratzinger and his brother, Georg, entered the major seminary at Freising. (Freising, a town some twenty miles north of Munich, is joined to the much larger city in the name of the local archdiocese, which is “Munich and Freising.” The diocese of Freising dates back to 739, while the double-named archdiocese into which the Freising diocese was incorporated only dates to 1818). In the seminary, which was also serving as a hospital for foreign POWs awaiting repatriation, older war veterans and youngsters like Joseph Ratzinger were united in a determination to serve the Church and, in doing so, to help rebuild a physically and morally shattered Germany. For a mind like Ratzinger’s, the return to academic life was a long awaited feast: “a hunger for knowledge had grown in the years of famine, in the years when we had been delivered up to the Moloch of power, so far from the realm of the spirit.” In addition to the prescribed courses in philosophy and other subjects, Ratzinger and his colleagues “devoured” novels, with Dostoevsky, Claudel, Bernanos, and Mauriac among the favorites. The seminary curriculum didn’t neglect the hard sciences; as Ratzinger would later put it, “we thought that, with the breakthroughs made by Planck, Heisenberg, and Einstein, the sciences were once again on their way to God.” Romano Guardini and Josef Pieper were favorites among the contemporary theologians and philosophers.

The prefect of Ratzinger’s study hall, Father Alfred Läpple, put him to work reading books that introduced him to Heidegger, Jaspers, Nietzsche, Buber, and Bergson, philosophers most certainly not on any Roman (or American) seminary reading list in those days; the young Ratzinger immediately made an intuitive connection between the personalism of Buber and Jaspers and “the thought of St. Augustine, who in his Confessions had struck me with the power of all his human passion and depth.” Conversely, and concurrently, Ratzinger had an unhappy introduction to the philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas, which were presented in what he later termed a “rigid, neo-scholastic” form that was “simply too far afield from my own questions.” The young Bavarian scholar was beginning to range freely across centuries of western and Christian thought, a lifelong process that would eventually give him an encyclopedic knowledge of theology. His seminary experience with neo-scholasticism would also mark him permanently, and would later make him the first non-Thomist in centuries to head the Catholic Church’s principal doctrinal office.

In 1947, Ratzinger went to Munich for his theological studies, encountering there a host of renowned theologians and teachers who were breaking with the rigidities of neo-scholasticism and rethinking Catholic dogmatic theology through a return to the Bible, to the Fathers of the Church in the early centuries of Christianity, and to the liturgy, the Church’s worship, which they believed was a locus theologicus, a “source” of theology. Preeminent among these teachers was Michael Schmaus, who had come to Munich from Münster after the war and was considered a theologian on the cutting edge of the renewal of Catholic thought. Ratzinger was also intrigued by the New Testament scholar Friedrich Wilhelm Maier, and while he could never accept aspects of Maier’s method of biblical interpretation, he learned from him a passion for biblical studies which, as he later put it, “has always remained for me the center of my theology.” Another influential teacher during these years was his Old Testament professor, Friedrich Stummer, who helped the neophyte theologian to understand that “the New Testament is not a different book of a different religion that, for some reason or other, had appropriated the Holy Scriptures of the Jews as a kind of preliminary structure.” No, “the New Testament is nothing other than an interpretation of ‘the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings’ found from or contained in the story of Jesus.” In Munich, under the tutelage of Josef Pascher, Ratzinger began to explore the mid-century liturgical movement more deeply and to read in the mystical theology that had grown out of one center of that movement, the Benedictine monastery at Maria Laach. The Bible and the liturgy came together for Ratzinger, intellectually, in his Munich studies: “Just as I learned to understand the New Testament as being the soul of all theology, so too I came to see the liturgy as its living element, without which it would necessarily shrivel up.” (The Making of a New Benedict.)

Consider how Joseph Ratzinger was trained to accept the very Modernist methodologies and presuppositions that had been condemned so clearly by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and would be condemned during his final year in seminary by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950. Those seeking to praise the men responsible for the warping of the mind of the currently governing "pontiff" have to dismiss the following warnings that these Pope Saint Pius X and Pope Pius XII gave us about the contempt that Modernists have for the truths contained in the Sacred Deposit of Faith and for the Fathers and Doctors of the Holy Mother Church who have explicated and defended them:

42. Would that they had but displayed less zeal and energy in propagating it! But such is their activity and such their unwearying labor on behalf of their cause, that one cannot but be pained to see them waste such energy in endeavoring to ruin the Church when they might have been of such service to her had their efforts been better directed. Their artifices to delude men's minds are of two kinds, the first to remove obstacles from their path, the second to devise and apply actively and patiently every resource that can serve their purpose. They recognize that the three chief difficulties which stand in their way are the scholastic method of philosophy, the authority and tradition of the Fathers, and the magisterium of the Church, and on these they wage unrelenting war. Against scholastic philosophy and theology they use the weapons of ridicule and contempt. Whether it is ignorance or fear, or both, that inspires this conduct in them, certain it is that the passion for novelty is always united in them with hatred of scholasticism, and there is no surer sign that a man is tending to Modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for the scholastic method. Let the Modernists and their admirers remember the proposition condemned by Pius IX: "The method and principles which have served the ancient doctors of scholasticism when treating of theology no longer correspond with the exigencies of our time or the progress of science." They exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.''

The Modernists pass judgment on the holy Fathers of the Church even as they do upon tradition. With consummate temerity they assure the public that the Fathers, while personally most worthy of all veneration, were entirely ignorant of history and criticism, for which they are only excusable on account of the time in which they lived. Finally, the Modernists try in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium itself by sacrilegiously falsifying its origin, character, and rights, and by freely repeating the calumnies of its adversaries. To the entire band of Modernists may be applied those words which Our predecessor sorrowfully wrote: "To bring contempt and odium on the mystic Spouse of Christ, who is the true light, the children of darkness have been wont to cast in her face before the world a stupid calumny, and perverting the meaning and force of things and words, to depict her as the friend of darkness and ignorance, and the enemy of light, science, and progress.''This being so, Venerable Brethren, there is little reason to wonder that the Modernists vent all their bitterness and hatred on Catholics who zealously fight the battles of the Church. There is no species of insult which they do not heap upon them, but their usual course is to charge them with ignorance or obstinacy. When an adversary rises up against them with an erudition and force that renders them redoubtable, they seek to make a conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the effects of his attack. This policy towards Catholics is the more invidious in that they belaud with admiration which knows no bounds the writers who range themselves on their side, hailing their works, exuding novelty in every page, with a chorus of applause. For them the scholarship of a writer is in direct proportion to the recklessness of his attacks on antiquity, and of his efforts to undermine tradition and the ecclesiastical magisterium. When one of their number falls under the condemnations of the Church the rest of them, to the disgust of good Catholics, gather round him, loudly and publicly applaud him, and hold him up in veneration as almost a martyr for truth. The young, excited and confused by all this clamor of praise and abuse, some of them afraid of being branded as ignorant, others ambitious to rank among the learned, and both classes goaded internally by curiosity and pride, not infrequently surrender and give themselves up to Modernism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 2007.)

21. It is also true that theologians must always return to the sources of divine revelation: for it belongs to them to point out how the doctrine of the living Teaching Authority is to be found either explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures and in Tradition.[4] Besides, each source of divinely revealed doctrine contains so many rich treasures of truth, that they can really never be exhausted. Hence it is that theology through the study of its sacred sources remains ever fresh; on the other hand, speculation which neglects a deeper search into the deposit of faith, proves sterile, as we know from experience. But for this reason even positive theology cannot be on a par with merely historical science. For, together with the sources of positive theology God has given to His Church a living Teaching Authority to elucidate and explain what is contained in the deposit of faith only obscurely and implicitly. This deposit of faith our Divine Redeemer has given for authentic interpretation not to each of the faithful, not even to theologians, but only to the Teaching Authority of the Church. But if the Church does exercise this function of teaching, as she often has through the centuries, either in the ordinary or extraordinary way, it is clear how false is a procedure which would attempt to explain what is clear by means of what is obscure. Indeed the very opposite procedure must be used. Hence Our Predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, teaching that the most noble office of theology is to show how a doctrine defined by the Church is contained in the sources of revelation, added these words, and with very good reason: "in that sense in which it has been defined by the Church."

22. To return, however, to the new opinions mentioned above, a number of things are proposed or suggested by some even against the divine authorship of Sacred Scripture. For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council's definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters. They even wrongly speak of a human sense of the Scriptures, beneath which a divine sense, which they say is the only infallible meaning, lies hidden. In interpreting Scripture, they will take no account of the analogy of faith and the Tradition of the Church. Thus they judge the doctrine of the Fathers and of the Teaching Church by the norm of Holy Scripture, interpreted by the purely human reason of exegetes, instead of explaining Holy Scripture according to the mind of the Church which Christ Our Lord has appointed guardian and interpreter of the whole deposit of divinely revealed truth.

23. Further, according to their fictitious opinions, the literal sense of Holy Scripture and its explanation, carefully worked out under the Church's vigilance by so many great exegetes, should yield now to a new exegesis, which they are pleased to call symbolic or spiritual. By means of this new exegesis the Old Testament, which today in the Church is a sealed book, would finally be thrown open to all the faithful. By this method, they say, all difficulties vanish, difficulties which hinder only those who adhere to the literal meaning of the Scriptures.

24. Everyone sees how foreign all this is to the principles and norms of interpretation rightly fixed by our predecessors of happy memory, Leo XIII in his Encyclical "Providentissimus," and Benedict XV in the Encyclical "Spiritus Paraclitus," as also by Ourselves in the Encyclical "Divino Affflante Spiritu."

25. It is not surprising that novelties of this kind have already borne their deadly fruit in almost all branches of theology. It is now doubted that human reason, without divine revelation and the help of divine grace, can, by arguments drawn from the created universe, prove the existence of a personal God; it is denied that the world had a beginning; it is argued that the creation of the world is necessary, since it proceeds from the necessary liberality of divine love; it is denied that God has eternal and infallible foreknowedge of the free actions of men -- all this in contradiction to the decrees of the Vatican Council[5] (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's rejection of Scholasticism is directly responsible for his believing that errors of all kinds can be useful in "understanding" what is already very clear of its very nature: the Sacred Deposit of Faith. Our true popes have warned us that those who are so reckless as to cast aside the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas will be open to, if not always suspect of, heresy as their minds are incapable of accepting truth in clear, immutable terms that can never be subjected to reinterpretation or reformulation at any time:

"But, furthermore, Our predecessors in the Roman pontificate have celebrated the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas by exceptional tributes of praise and the most ample testimonials. Clement VI in the bull 'In Ordine;' Nicholas V in his brief to the friars of the Order of Preachers, 1451; Benedict XIII in the bull 'Pretiosus,' and others bear witness that the universal Church borrows luster from his admirable teaching; while St. Pius V declares in the bull 'Mirabilis' that heresies, confounded and convicted by the same teaching, were dissipated, and the whole world daily freed from fatal errors; others, such as Clement XII in the bull 'Verbo Dei,' affirm that most fruitful blessings have spread abroad from his writings over the whole Church, and that he is worthy of the honor which is bestowed on the greatest Doctors of the Church, on Gregory and Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome; while others have not hesitated to propose St. Thomas for the exemplar and master of the universities and great centers of learning whom they may follow with unfaltering feet. On which point the words of Blessed Urban V to the University of Toulouse are worthy of recall: 'It is our will, which We hereby enjoin upon you, that ye follow the teaching of Blessed Thomas as the true and Catholic doctrine and that ye labor with all your force to profit by the same.' Innocent XII, followed the example of Urban in the case of the University of Louvain, in the letter in the form of a brief addressed to that university on February 6, 1694, and Benedict XIV in the letter in the form of a brief addressed on August 26, 1752, to the Dionysian College in Granada; while to these judgments of great Pontiffs on Thomas Aquinas comes the crowning testimony of Innocent VI: 'is teaching above that of others, the canonical writings alone excepted, enjoys such a precision of language, an order of matters, a truth of conclusions, that those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth, and he who dare assail it will always be suspected of error.'

The ecumenical councils, also, where blossoms the flower of all earthly wisdom, have always been careful to hold Thomas Aquinas in singular honor. In the Councils of Lyons, Vienna, Florence, and the Vatican one might almost say that Thomas took part and presided over the deliberations and decrees of the Fathers, contending against the errors of the Greeks, of heretics and rationalists, with invincible force and with the happiest results. But the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with none of the Catholic Doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent made it part of the order of conclave to lay upon the altar, together with sacred Scripture and the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs, the 'Summa' of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel, reason, and inspiration.

A last triumph was reserved for this incomparable man -- namely, to compel the homage, praise, and admiration of even the very enemies of the Catholic name. For it has come to light that there were not lacking among the leaders of heretical sects some who openly declared that, if the teaching of Thomas Aquinas were only taken away, they could easily battle with all Catholic teachers, gain the victory, and abolish the Church. A vain hope, indeed, but no vain testimony. (Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, August 4, 1879.)

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict, puffed up with overweening pride and oozing with hubris, believes that he knows better that Pope Leo XIII. He knows better than Pope Benedict XIII. He knows better than Pope Saint Pius V. He knows better than Pope Clement XII. He knows better than Blessed Urban V. He knows better than Pope Innocent VI. He knows better than the man whose thought was good enough for "his time" but has become obsolete now, the Angelic Doctor, Saint Thomas Aquinas. Ratzinger/Benedict's rejection of and contempt for the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas that he acquired in his seminary days was the pathway by which he would come to embrace and serve as an apologist for the new ecclesiology, false ecumenism, Modernist Biblical exegesis, inter-religious prayer services, religious liberty, episcopal collegiality and separation of Church and State 

The false "pontiff's" rejection of and contempt for the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas makes it possible for him to distort, pervert and misrepresent the lives and work of various Fathers and Doctors and saints, including Saint Robert Bellarmine and Saint Francis de Sales, to make them appear to be precursors of his own revolutionary agenda. He has done this even with Saint Paul the Apostle (see Attempting to Coerce Perjury). He has done this also with various doctrines, including that of Purgatory (see From Sharp Focus to Fuzziness.) Indeed, the "pope" started off the year six months ago now with yet another attempt to justify the falsehood of "religious liberty" (see Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, part one, Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, part two and Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, part three), using this as a springboard to announce plans for Assisi III (see Bearing "Fruits" From Hell Itself, part one, Bearing "Fruits" From Hell Itself, part 2 and Not Interested in Assisi III.)

Longtime readers of this site, few in number though you. may be, know that the work of this site attempts to address root causes of problems, not their symptoms, which is why I am not at all interested in the day-to-day machinations of the midget naturalists of the fascists of the false opposites naturalist left and the right. It matters not that he sounds like a Catholic now and again. What matters is that he defected from the Faith in his seminary days and has been a destroyer of Its "bastions" ever since. Please refer to the following articles for a review of just some of the contemporary manifestations of Ratzinger/Benedict's lifelong apostasies that he learned to embrace in his seminary days and has promoted ever since: Impressed With His Own Originality, Accepting "Popes" As Unreliable Teachers, Obeying The Commands of a False Church, Boilerplate Ratzinger, "Cardinals" Burke and Canizares, Meet The Council of Trent, Vesakh, Not Miller, Time at the Vatican, Saint Vincent Ferrer and Anti-Saint Vincent Ferrers, Celebrating Apostasy and Dereliction of Duty, To Be Loved by the Jews, As We Continue To Blaspheme Christ the King and His True Church, which is an updated listing of Ratzinger/Benedict's offenses against the Faith in the past six years, Coloring Everything He Says and Does, part one, Coloring Everything He Says and Does, part two, Perhaps Judas Was the First to Sing "A Kiss is Just a Kiss", Enjoy the Party, George, Enjoy the Party, Anticlimactic "Beatification" for an Antipope, Open Letter to Pretended Catholic Scholars, Scholarship in Conciliarism's Land of Oz, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part one, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part two, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part three, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part four, Peeking into the Old Conciliar Fowler's Lair, part one, Peeking into the Old Conciliar Fowler's Lair, part two, Future Home of the "Reform of the Reform", Quite Right, which contains a summary of some of the false "pope's" warfare against the immutability of dogma and a listing of the major ecclesiological errors of the Society of Saint Pius X that undermines and, indeed, makes a mockery of  the papacy itself and of their priests' defense of the Social Reign of Christ the King, Excuse Me, Father, While I Look For My New Paperwork From Rome, Just A Personal Visit, Conversion of Russia Update, So Much For Charles Martel, So Much for the Crusades, So Much for Pius V and Jan Sobieski, So Much for Catholic Truth and Let's Play The Let's Pretend Game.

An insightful essay, published as part of a series by Si, Si, No, No in 1994, got to the very roots of the Modernist thought that penetrated deep into the heart, mind and soul of Joseph Ratzinger in his seminary days as he became part of the school of the "new theology" that was advanced at the "Second" Vatican Council and thereafter by Giovanni Montini/Paul VI and, of course, by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II:

Pope Paul VI's discretion and persistence most effectively handed over supreme control and power to the "new theology" in the Catholic world. There is absolutely no room for doubt on this score. However, the triumph of this "new theology" has not meant a triumph for the Catholic Faith. The German theologian Dormann, referring to the last Council (The Theological Way of John Paul II and the Spirit of Assisi) writes, "Never before has a Papal encyclical, written barely fifteen years previously, been repudiated in so short a time and so completely by those very persons whom it condemns, as Humani Generis (1950)." The Jesuit and "new theologian" Henrici has given us a portrait of the present situation:

"Nowadays, when theological professorships are in the hands of our Concilium colleagues, almost all of the theologians who have been named bishops in the last few years have come from the ranks of Communio (a more moderately progressive journal)…Balthasar, De Lubac, and Ratzinger, the founders [of Communio], have all become cardinals" (30 Days, December 1991).

Presently, in the Church-affiliated universities, including Pontifical universities, the founding fathers of the "new theology" are being studied; doctoral theses are being prepared on Blondel, De Lubac, and Von Balthasar. The Osservatore Romano as well as Civilta Cattolica praise these modernists and their ways of "thought" and the Catholic press falls in line: Everyone falls into line with the one occupying Peter's throne.

At the present time, a "new theologian" holds the exalted position of President of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. . . .

Must anything else be added to prove that Ratzinger the Prefect is in perfect accord with Ratzinger the "theologian"? Yes, we do owe it to our readers to point out the fact that Elio Guerriero; chief editor of Communio (Italian edition) is in perfect agreement with us on this score. In order to illustrate the new theology's victorious march in his journal Jesus (April, 1992), he wrote, "Anyway, in Rome we must bring to your attention the work done by Joseph Ratzinger, both as a theologian and as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." The only thing left of Ratzinger the "restorer" is the myth.

It is not difficult to see what gave rise to this myth. In his Preface to Introduzione al Cristianismo (1968 Italian edition of Ratzinger's book Einfuhrung in das Christentum) for example, Ratzinger writes, "The problem of knowing exactly the content and meaning of the Christian Faith is presently shrouded in a nebulous halo of uncertainty, thick and dense as has never been seen before in history." And this because "those who have followed at least in some small way the theological movement of the last decade and have kept a certain distance from the herd of unthinking souls who consider anything new as being always and automatically better," have been quite anxious to know if "our theology ...has not gone in the direction of an interpretation reducing the rightful claims and demands of our Faith which seemed overly oppressive, for the simple reason that since nothing of any great importance seemed to have been lost and so many things still remained, the new theologians could immediately dare to go still one step further" (p.7).

What Catholic who loves the Church and who is suffering such a heartache in the midst of the present universal crisis would not wholeheartedly agree with these affirmations? Already in this Preface, which has remained unchanged since 1968, we find sufficient matter to give rise to that popular myth of Ratzinger the "restorer."

But just what does he oppose to this progressive onslaught and demolition of the Faith being perpetuated by present-day (new) theology? His opposition consists in a general absolution of this very same "theology" concerning which - he declares - "one cannot...honestly ...affirm that, taken as a whole, it has taken this kind of direction." By way of "corrective action," he suggests the repudiation of Catholic Tradition along with the Church's Magisterium by which the new theology of the last few decades has succeeded in shrouding "the content and meaning of the Christian Faith. For the deplorable tendency of this new theology to reduce the Faith, Ratzinger remarks, "We will surely not find the solution by insisting on remaining attached to the noble metal of fixed formulas of former times and which, in the final analysis, turn out to be simply a heap of metal which weighs heavily upon our shoulders instead of favoring, by virtue of its worth, the possibility of reaching true liberty [which in this way, has underhandedly replaced the truth]" (Preface to Introduzione al Cristianismo, p.8). The fact that his foreword is certainly heading in the same direction as contemporary "theology" seems to have completely escaped Ratzinger. Long ago, Pope St. Pius X noted that all modernists are in no way able to draw from their erroneous premises truly inevitable conclusions. (cf. Pascendi).

Ratzinger is always the same: those excesses or abuses from which he keeps a "respectful" distance (often by cutting remarks) he never opposes with Catholic truth but only with some other apparently more moderate error which, however, in the logic of error, nevertheless leads inevitably to the same ruinous conclusions.

In his book Entretien Sur La Foi (Discourse on the Faith), Ratzinger labels himself as a "well-balanced progressive." He favors a "peaceful evolution of [Catholic] doctrine" without, however, "solitary breakaways ahead of the flock," yet "without nostalgia nor regret for times irretrievably past"; meaning, of course, quietly leaving behind the Catholic Faith (pp. 16-17). Although he shrinks back from extreme "progressivism," Ratzinger cares even less for Catholic Tradition: "We must remain faithful to the present day of the Church [l'aujourd'hui de l’Eglise], not to its past [non a l'hier], nor its future [ni au demain]" (Entretien sur la Foi, p.32).

For this reason, a Catholic who cherishes the Catholic Faith and loves the Church is able to favor or subscribe to a number of Ratzinger's central affirmations, but, on closer observation of what this "restorer" proposes in place of the current universally-deplored "abuses," he will find himself unable to approve even a single sentence. And this is because the downward neo-modernist path leads us down the same slippery slope, even though it does so more gradually, it still ends up with the very same complete rejection of Divine Revelation, that is, in apostasy. No doubt about it: the writings of Ratzinger the "Theologian" are there for all to see, demonstrating an undeniable proof of this flagrant apostasy. (They Think They've Won! Part VI; one wonders why anyone in the Society of Saint Pius X can believe that Ratzinger/Benedict has not expelled himself from the Catholic Church, no less that he can be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.)

 

Do not be deceived by the appearance of Catholicism that Ratzinger/Benedict may give now and again. It is only the appearance, not the substance. No one who believes and says and does what he has done in the past sixty years can maintain membership in the Catholic Church. Our true popes have taught us this. Why do we fail to believe them:

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

The Modernists completely invert the parts, and of them may be applied the words which another of Our predecessors Gregory IX, addressed to some theologians of his time: "Some among you, puffed up like bladders with the spirit of vanity strive by profane novelties to cross the boundaries fixed by the Fathers, twisting the meaning of the sacred text...to the philosophical teaching of the rationalists, not for the profit of their hearer but to make a show of science...these men, led away by various and strange doctrines, turn the head into the tail and force the queen to serve the handmaid."

18. This will appear more clearly to anybody who studies the conduct of Modernists, which is in perfect harmony with their teachings. In their writings and addresses they seem not unfrequently to advocate doctrines which are contrary one to the other, so that one would be disposed to regard their attitude as double and doubtful. But this is done deliberately and advisedly, and the reason of it is to be found in their opinion as to the mutual separation of science and faith. Thus in their books one finds some things which might well be approved by a Catholic, but on turning over the page one is confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a rationalist. When they write history they make no mention of the divinity of Christ, but when they are in the pulpit they profess it clearly; again, when they are dealing with history they take no account of the Fathers and the Councils, but when they catechize the people, they cite them respectfully. In the same way they draw their distinctions between exegesis which is theological and pastoral and exegesis which is scientific and historical. So, too, when they treat of philosophy, history, and criticism, acting on the principle that science in no way depends upon faith, they feel no especial horror in treading in the footsteps of Luther and are wont to display a manifold contempt for Catholic doctrines, for the Holy Fathers, for the Ecumenical Councils, for the ecclesiastical magisterium; and should they be taken to task for this, they complain that they are being deprived of their liberty. Lastly, maintaining the theory that faith must be subject to science, they continuously and openly rebuke the Church on the ground that she resolutely refuses to submit and accommodate her dogmas to the opinions of philosophy; while they, on their side, having for this purpose blotted out the old theology, endeavor to introduce a new theology which shall support the aberrations of philosophers. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

 

Sounding like a Catholic does not make one a member of the Catholic Church. One must subscribe faithfully to everything contained within the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted exclusively to her teaching authority for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that Catholic dogma can never be expressed adequately at any one time, meaning that God the Holy Ghost has failed Holy Mother Church in directing the work of our true popes and the Fathers of Holy Mother Church's true councils. This is impossible. It is also impossible for anyone to believe such a thing and to remain a member of the Catholic Church.

In the midst of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's incredible sixty-year career of apostasy, blasphemy and sacrilege, which has included esteeming the symbols of false religions with his own priestly hands and calling places of false worship as "sacred" as he has been content to be treated as an inferior in those places and as he has given "joint blessings" with the "ministers" in some of those theaters of false worship, we must have recourse to Our Lady as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit and as we keep her company in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and in our time in fervent prayer before her Divine Son's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament. She will help us to cleave only to true bishops and to true priests who make absolutely no concessions to the abominable apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges of conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its "popes" and "bishops" who offend God so boldly, so openly and so brazenly--and with the full support and admiring approval of most of the world's baptized Catholics.

While each person must come to recognize this for himself (it took me long enough to do so; I defended the indefensible for far too long!), we must nevertheless embrace the truth once we do come to recognize and accept it without caring for one moment what anyone else may think about us as we make reparation for our sins, which did indeed transcend time and served to help to motivate the Jews of Our Lord's day to cry out for His Crucifixion just as we mock Him by means of our disordered self-love and stubborn refusal to obey His Commandments, and those of the whole world as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

As I noted last year now, we can never grow accustomed to apostasies that can never become acceptable with the passage of time. We can never grow accustomed to offenses given to God by the conciliar "popes" and their conciliar "bishops." We must never "spin" in their behalf.

We must cleave to the Catholic Church, not to the counterfeit church of conciliarism, as we attempt to plant the seeds for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as we seek to live more and more penitentially, making reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our own many sins and for those of the whole word, praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

 

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

 

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Pope Saint Leo II, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints